Install/de/Partitioning

This is a template that is used as part of the Installation instructions which covers: the process of partitioning and filesystem creation. Templates are being used to allow multiple variant install guides that use most of the same re-usable parts.

To install Funtoo Linux to boot via the New School UEFI method, you must boot System Rescue CD using UEFI -- and see an initial black and white screen. Otherwise, UEFI will not be active and you will not be able to set it up!

Along the way, you can type "p" and hit Enter to view your current partition table. If you make a mistake, you can type "d" to delete an existing partition that you created. When you are satisfied with your partition setup, type "w" to write your configuration to disk:

Write Partition Table To Disk:

Command: w ↵
Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): Y ↵

The partition table will now be written to disk and gdisk will close.

Now, your GPT/GUID partitions have been created, and will show up as the following block devices under Linux:

/dev/sda1, which will be used to hold the /boot filesystem,

/dev/sda2, which will be used for swap space, and

/dev/sda3, which will hold your root filesystem.

Creating filesystems

Note

This section covers both BIOS and UEFI installs. Don't skip it!

Before your newly-created partitions can be used, the block devices need to be initialized with filesystem metadata. This process is known as creating a filesystem on the block devices. After filesystems are created on the block devices, they can be mounted and used to store files.

Let's keep this simple. Are you using old-school MBR partitions? If so, let's create an ext2 filesystem on /dev/sda1:

# mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1

If you're using new-school GPT partitions for UEFI, you'll want to create a vfat filesystem on /dev/sda1, because this is what UEFI is able to read:

# mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1

Now, let's create a swap partition. This partition will be used as disk-based virtual memory for your Funtoo Linux system.

You will not create a filesystem on your swap partition, since it is not used to store files. But it is necessary to initialize it using the mkswap command. Then we'll run the swapon command to make your newly-initialized swap space immediately active within the live CD environment, in case it is needed during the rest of the install process:

# mkswap /dev/sda2
# swapon /dev/sda2

Now, we need to create a root filesystem. This is where Funtoo Linux will live. We generally recommend ext4 or XFS root filesystems. If you're not sure, choose ext4. Here's how to create a root ext4 filesystem:

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3

...and here's how to create an XFS root filesystem, if you choose to use XFS:

# mkfs.xfs /dev/sda3

Your filesystems (and swap) have all now been initialized, so that that can be mounted (attached to your existing directory heirarchy) and used to store files. We are ready to begin installing Funtoo Linux on these brand-new filesystems.

Warning

When deploying an OpenVZ host, please use ext4 exclusively. The Parallels development team tests extensively with ext4, and modern versions of openvz-rhel6-stable are not compatible with XFS, and you may experience kernel bugs.

Mounting filesystems

Mount the newly-created filesystems as follows, creating /mnt/funtoo as the installation mount point: